Commentary: Drones for cargo operations

By Chris Gillis|Sunday, April 06, 2014

Fednav in late March said it had become the first shipping company to use drones to check ice conditions on the water during a commercial voyage. The Umiak I , one of Fednav’s icebreakers, used a variety of video-equipped drones to scout ahead of the vessel in the ice-covered waters off the Labrador Coast. The goal was to provide the captain and officers with detailed, real-time visual information on the local ice conditions, the Montreal-based bulk ocean carrier said. Enfotec, a Fednav subsidiary, has for 20 years specialized in providing advanced ice imagery and analysis to vessels operating in difficult ice conditions. With advances in recent years in the quality of information derived from satellite and radar images...